Asherons Call: Skill System Update

October 3, 2002

Skill Level Changes
While this change will not go into place until patch day, we wanted to inform players of this very important change as soon as possible in order to allow you to make more well-informed decisions. Some recent changes to our internal systems have resulted in two changes involving skill levels that will occur with the next update. This letter explains these changes in excruciating detail.
First, some background. The level of a skill is made up of three different parts: the part that comes from your attributes, the part that comes from the experience points you have invested into the skill, and the 'free' points that get added in on top of the other two parts. Note that the part from experience points includes both proficiency points earned by using the skill, character points that you spent on the skill, and some quest rewards (such as from turning in tessera). Also note that we have never previously used the third category, the 'free' points.

Specialization Bonus
With the next update, we are changing the nature of the bonus that you get when specializing a skill at character creation. This change will be retroactive - that is, it will apply to all existing characters with specialized skills as well as new characters created after the update.

Previously, when you specialized a skill at creation, you were awarded 671 free experience points into that skill. That experience gave you 10 levels worth of skill, but it also increased the experience cost of the next skill level. After the update, you will not receive any free experience for a specialized skill, but you will instead receive 10 'free' levels of that skill. These levels are added onto the levels from your attributes and the levels from invested experience, and therefore do not affect the cost of your next skill level.
Existing characters that have specialized skills will lose 671 experience points from that skill - the 671 experience points that they were given at creation - but will receive in exchange the same 10 'free' levels that new characters receive. Note that losing 671 experience points may drop your skill level one or more levels, so that you may not immediately be a full 10 levels higher in a specialized skill. Investing 671 more experience points into the skill, however, will make up this difference.

Note that this change only applied to specialized skills. There is no change to the nature of the bonus you get when training a skill at creation. Training a skill at creation has previously and will continue to give you 526 free experience points in that skill, which is enough experience to purchase the first 5 levels of your skill.

Regarding Quest Skill Experience Rewards
As mentioned above, quests that reward you skill points - like the tessera and the Scroll of Dark Rain - actually increase the level of invested experience in your skill. Because of a flaw in the experience system, it used to be possible to use the rewards from certain quests to raise the level of a specialized skill above the maximum normal level. That is, you could invest experience points in the skill until it was at its maximum level from experience, and then turn in tessera to raise the skill another 1-5 levels. If you tried to accomplish this same goal with a trained skill, however, you would still use up the tessera, but you would receive no lasting benefit.

This behavior was never intended. And recent changes to the internal structure of the experience system no longer allow this behavior. From now on, trained and specialized skill will behave the same way with respect to tessera - if you have already invested the maximum experience possible into the skill, then quest rewards like the tessera or the Scroll of Dark Rain will not benefit you in any way. We strongly recommend, therefore, that you do not attempt to receive a quest reward for a skill in which you already invested the maximum amount of experience. Indeed, we have always recommended that you do attempt to receive a quest reward for a skill in which you already invested the maximum amount of experience.

Characters who have already used quest rewards to raise the level of a specialized skill above the normal maximum will lose the excess levels of that skill with the next update. For example, let's say that Bob has invested experience to get his war magic skill to 223. (Note that we are only talking about the part of his skill level that comes from experience here, and ignoring the part from attributes.) Then he turned in 5 war magic tessera. His war magic skill is now 2 levels above the normal maximum from experience, or 228. After the update, Bob's war skill will lose those 2 excess levels, and his war magic skill from experience will be 226. Of course, since Bob has war magic specialized - and we know that he must, or he wouldn't have been able to get those excess points from tessera - he also receives the 10 free levels for having the skill specialized. Overall, his war magic goes up 8 levels.